


Enough to Go By

by anamatics



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Family, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, tw: discussion of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 02:26:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamatics/pseuds/anamatics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's always saving someone, except the one she wants to save the most.  Spoilers up though 'The Outsider.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enough to Go By

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes:** I wanted to write a story that sort of played around the canon of 'The Outsider' but talked a little bit more about the backstory that was presented in 'The Cricket Game' -- aka I wanted to talk about Snow and Regina (with a side of hilarious Swan Queen and Snow's reactions to it.) The story was initially started by my listening to Vienna Teng's '[Enough to Go By](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVw8oWrHKEQ)', which I think everyone listen to RIGHT NOW.  I want to give huge thank you to _Ennn_ who helped me to beat this behemoth into submission. It took a few drafts, but I think this is worth it. **TW: mentions of abuse.**
> 
> **  
>  **

It was not the first time that she'd been sat down and told that her penchant for saving things was sure to get her killed one day.  Nor was it going to be the last.  She’d always had an itch, deep inside her, that made it impossible for her to stop trying to save things. She was good and she was righteous.  She was on the right side of this debacle - she knew it.

"Snow, you can't be serious," he always began, and smiled at her when he realized his defeat.  It was crooked and awkward and sometimes she wondered if it was even genuine.  It was in those moments that she wasn’t sure that she was ready for how deeply she loved him.  He represented an idea to her, the perfect ending of a life she wasn’t quite prepared to move forward towards. True love gave way to happily ever after, but what came after that?  Forever seemed to stretch to eternity and Snow felt like she was drowning in the idea of endless love.  Sometimes she thought she was far too young for such a thing, and she loved him so much her heart ached for it.

He was the only one that understood that Snow felt the weight of a million mountains sitting on her back.  Her father was dead, her mother was dead - her stepmother...

She couldn’t ever think about her stepmother.

Her’s was not a life that could be saved.

"Of course I am," she always replied.  It came easily then, and she would always grin at Grumpy or Red, both of whom would flash a grin or whisper a message of positive reinforcement.  "Why don't you make it so?"  They’ve got a dragon to slay, after all.

And then he does, because he was her Prince Charming and that was how the story goes.

-

Snow knows that she cannot be simply Snow White, daughter of Leopold, queen of the Enchanted Forest any more. She has the memories of someone else entirely in her mind, seeping through her consciousness and influencing her very behavior when she doesn’t concentrate hard on them.  She can shoot and arrow and use a sword, but also drive as though it’s second nature to her when the very  _idea_ of a car should terrify her. Emma doesn’t quite understand, and stands away from her as David tells them both of his assertion that they are both.  They are their best and worst qualities.

She decides to own Mary Margaret, because she likes the feeling of distance it gives her from the place she’s just left.  Their world is torn, corrupted by an evil she can barely place in the jumbled up mess of her memories.  She does not want to be the ruler of an empty kingdom, devoid of hope.  

David grasps her hands and she leans forward and presses a kiss on his cheek.  Emma turns away.  They’re not quite a family.  They don’t fit into nice, neat little boxes of happy endings.

-

Boxes are not so easy.

"You can't be serious," Ruby says, staring at Snow who is trying not to look like she's about to cry.  Snow wants this to be accepted and even tried.  She's wanted this most of her life and she's probably never going to get it because that's not how the cards have been dealt.  She's a woman out of time and space and she's stuck in what feels like neutral, spinning her wheels on forever after.

She's supposed to be a queen now.  She's spent so long not being that at all that she doesn't quite remember how to speak with the conviction of one born and bred to rule from an early age.  Teachers do that – they speak the truth for those who are willing and able to hear it, but the people of this town are not at all like the children in her fourth grade class.  

Going back there has killed her faith in her abilities to lead.  She’s seen the people she’s left behind, to be ruled by the wickedest of witches.  She feels their pain and knows their anger like it is her own, for she too was abandoned by those who were meant to protect her.  

Her conviction has gone the way of her kingdom – she feels she almost has no right to rule anymore.  She has brought this – all of this – down upon her people.

Mary Margaret looks at Ruby resolutely and folds her arms across her chest.  "I am," is all she says, because it's a suicide mission and probably is just going to crush her hope once more. She has so much hope for this when she knows that it won’t work anyway.  Maybe she just misses being a child, for she hasn’t been one in so long.

No, it’s not because of that.

It’s because she remembers what it was like, spending nights in Henry Mills’ home.  He was but a local dealer in horses – he bred and broke them efficiently and with a skill that was unrivaled in the kingdom.  Her father respected the man to a point, for he could never fully respect a man who feared his wife.  Mary Margaret remembers being a child, being  _Snow_ , and creeping down the dark hallways after she had been sent to bed.  She remembers looking into the Lady Cora’s rooms, she remembers seeing the dark price of what she had taken from the girl (and she was just a girl, really) whom she’d selected to be her mother.

Later on, it had been her mantra.  That she was just a girl.  That they were both children who had no place playing queen and princess before they truly understood what the titles meant.  She knows it’s not that though.  It’s never been just that.

Twisted words and a secret that should not have been told.

Three lives ruined.

All on her hands.

“I have to do it,” Mary Margaret says firmly and Ruby throws up her hands and stalks away.  She’s sassier here, and Mary Margaret likes that.  Ruby was always so down-trodden before, now she has a swagger about her and a cockiness that probably comes from overexposure to Emma.

“Whatever,” Ruby grumbles, heading back behind the diner counter.  “Your funeral.”

-

There is a part of Mary Margaret’s very sensible upbringing that tells her that this is probably the worst idea that she’s ever had in her life.  And that includes getting on Cora Mills’ loaned horse in the first place.  She’s standing outside of a door that she knows will open only to the strife and vitriol that she completely and utterly deserves.  And she’s about to knock on it.

She had not tried to explain to Emma or to David before she left; they wouldn’t understand.  Henry had watched her go and had shaken his head.  He’s a different sort of boy now that his only hope and worst nightmare have both proven to ring true.  The book was right and wrong all at once, as it absolves guilty parties of guilt and applies far more fault than is earned to others.  She hates that she is the one who is indirectly responsible for all of this – it seems to forever be her lot in this life. Mary Margaret feels the crushing weight of the guilt all around her, because she’s decimated any semblance of normalcy in his life too.

“Here goes nothing,” she mutters to herself, and knocks on the stark black door.  

It is autumn, the leaves are turning and the apple tree is bearing fruit.  She’s distracted by it long enough to momentarily forget that she’s a colossal idiot with a death wish for doing this.  Her stepmother has always had the greenest of thumbs after all, and it’s a testament to her stubbornness and persistence that she’s carved this little slice of Eden out of the coldest and most unpleasant places that Mary Margaret has ever had the misfortune of living in.

In the big scheme of things, Maine is a step above their home.  They are protected, as Emma always insists, by the rules of law and a Bill of Rights so old and yet so completely new to them all that they can barely fathom it.  Mary Margaret is the only representative of herself here.  Her husband cannot speak for her, nor can her king.  She rather likes that.  She knows her people do as well and that knowledge alone fills her with a sense of deep reservation to act on their behalf.  They deserve to make their own decisions.

Which begs the question of the ages, and one that she desperately needs to ask unwelcome and unhearing ears: should they stay here, or should they go?  Emma would accompany such a question with an air guitar riff and possibly some hip thrusting that would make Mary Margaret roll her eyes and David blink in confusion, not quite following the reference.  

She recalls being that way herself, and winning wan smiles as she stares adoringly up at the girl who could have been so much more than her mother.  The jokes were always bad, the stories and fibs and lies hardly worth recalling, but the smile had been all the more worth it.  The smiles are what Mary Margaret has always missed the most.  

The door opens and there is a long and drawn out moment of silence where Mary Margaret considers turning around and leaving.  Because this was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad idea.

“What are you doing here?”  Comes the question that is not the one that she needs answered. It’s twisted and full of malice and hatred.  She remembers what it was like before.  When there was kindness and stories about the beginning of the world and the elves and the dwarves and the fairies that brought it all into existence.  Somehow, along the way, they’d both lost their place in the bigger scheme of things.

“I …” and for the life of her, Mary Margaret forgets that she’s Snow and only remembers what it was like in that other time and place where there was no time – just an endless passage of a clock that never moved.  She feels tongue-tied and not at all sure of where she’s going with this, but she knows what she must do.  “I wanted to speak to you.”

She’s met with a curled lip and a raised eyebrow that is so much like her mother that Mary Margaret cannot stand it.  She knows that it was never anyone’s intention for things to get this far, for her stepmother to become so like the absolute corrupting force in her life.  She knows and she doesn’t know how to fix it.  “Well you have, now, if you don’t mind… I have to get back to house arrest and doing absolutely nothing.”

It’s then that something snaps within Mary Margaret.  She’s gone so long not saying anything, fearing what might happen should she dare utter the words to apologize.  She knows that something is afoot in this town and that there’s more to everything than meets the eye.  “Your mother is in town,” she fumbles over the words as she says them, feeling more like how she always felt as a little girl.  Too afraid to speak for fear that secrets would come out.  Secrets that no one should know lest they hurt the innocent.  “She’s always been adept at playing other people.”

“Why Snow, are you saying that you are going to stake a claim on my innocence?  Pray that you don’t forget that we are not in our world and you are not as…  _protected_ here,” In that moment Mary Margaret does not hear Regina, the woman who saved her life, but rather Cora, the mother who orchestrated the very circumstances that drove them apart.

Still Mary Margaret shakes it off, because she’s used to the barbs and the fiercely sarcastic wit of this woman.  She’s had twenty eight years of hatred, and her entire childhood of watching to know how to stomach it.  Perhaps, at one point, her father had even encouraged it.  He’d liked to argue and surround himself with people far better than himself.  He liked to control things then.  He had liked to control this woman. He was a king with no son and it had taken Snow coming to maturity in that realm to realize what, exactly, that meant.  “I know that,” she whispers fiercely, stepping forward, her nostrils flaring and her voice dropping low.  “I know that if you wanted me dead I would have been long ago.”  There’s no response to that, and when she finds herself still quite alive, she inclines her head and steps back.  “Can I come inside?  I will not touch or meddle, I merely wish to talk.”

She says nothing, and Mary Margaret finds herself grabbed by the hand and pulled into the house. She opens her mouth to say something to Regina, and the entire room seems to collapse around them.  It’s just a kitchen, Snow tries to level with her brain, but as Regina peers out the window for a long moment she can’t help but wonder if this is the one sanctum that they haven’t managed to take from her.  The ground she’s staked her claim to and simply will not budge on. 

“Do you really think she’s here?”  Regina asks, turning with wide eyes and a conflicted expression.  “Do you think it’s possible that she followed you, somehow?”  She turns back to the window and stares out of it once more – her eyes darting over her garden, taking in the last of the fall blooms and the growing collection of leaves in the yard.  “She’s come after me… Snow,” Regina whispers urgently and fiercely.  “You have to protect Henry from her – she can’t… she can’t know.”

And that’s when it all makes sense.  No one had bothered to tell her; no one had sat her down and told her what had happened to them.  Henry hadn’t had all the details.  No one told her that Emma’s got the biggest mouth this side of forever and that this whole thing is probably at least somewhat Emma’s fault.

“I will,” she says, and she knows that her promise will come with the same grain of salt that they’ve been taken with her entire life.  She had had one duty to Regina when they’d first met, and she’d failed so spectacularly that she probably should have resolved to never make a promise to Regina again.  Still, family is family and Regina’s a part of theirs in more ways than one (because Mary Margaret has eyes and Emma broke the blender after the last time they saw Regina). “I mean it.”

The look that greets her then is one that Mary Margaret knows that she fully deserves. It is withering and patronizing and she wholly deserves it.  “Your words carry little weight.”

“Let them carry what they may,” Mary Margaret spits back and she folds her arms across her chest.  “I can’t let this go on, Regina.  Once – once we were all happy.”

She seems to crumple within herself, before her eyes meet Mary Margaret’s with a resolution that seems almost out of place on her face.  Regina’s always been the one to concede defeat and live to fight another day, but no.  Today it is different and there’s the force of a will more powerful than iron behind the gaze that Mary Margaret now finds herself attempting to counter as best she could.  “I was happy, once – and then a little girl rode into my life on a spooked horse and destroyed my happiness.”

“Your mother destroyed your happiness,” Mary Margaret counters.  “And she’s set to do it again.”

“You need to leave.”

-

The loft is small, cramped, and a happily ever after that Mary Margaret could scarce dream of as she ran through the forests of her home. Back then this had been all she'd ever wanted - desperate to escape a demon she created all alone.

Emma and Henry are just there, themselves.  Believing the lies of perfect happiness and wonderful peace. There can be no peace here, for there’s always a threat that looms on the horizon.  Evil is here, lurking in the shadows, waiting like a viper.  The town is restless.  They're four people in a one person space, and Emma's been sleeping on the really uncomfortable couch just so that Henry can have a bed to sleep in.

She hates what she's had a part in doing.  Henry's room at Regina's - she's been in there once.  It's huge, full of books he loves and objects that have sparked his imagination long before he realized that it was all real. There is magic in that room, and it's not the sort of magic that she can easily re-create.

She's got to talk to David.

When she does sit him down, it's a future he talks about like he's forgotten that their daughter is twenty-eight and doesn't need a yard.  Or turrets, or a dangerous death-trap of a moat.  He wants something that she cannot possibly give him.

He wants to go back.  Back to a time and a place where all of this was far simpler and they were not twenty-nine years into a marriage that involved not a whole lot of romance or growing together.  

And that's when she goes back to that black door by the apple tree and knocks once, twice, and then a third time.

"I don't want to see you," comes her stepmother's voice and Mary Margaret wonders if it really is that easy for her to just come and go without them noticing.  Emma's sure looked hard for her.  "And I have nothing to say to you."

To admit guilt, her father had told her once, long ago, is the sign of a weak king. To admit error was a sign of a just and righteous king.  He would sit with her on his knee and own up to his mistakes and failings as a ruler, but he would never apologize.  It was not a weakness that he had ever shown.

She'd been raised to marry a prince and become a queen.  Her father had longed for a son, the prince who could take his kingdom to even further heights of prosperity. It was only later, when her father had left her schooling to her stepmother, that Mary Margaret had learned to be pragmatic, to solve puzzles.

"Something has happened and I need to speak to you about it," she explains, her jaw jutting out with a stubbornness that she certainly did not get from her father.  "There's been an accident - Belle fell across the town line."

Regina's lips twist upwards at that, and Snow is struck with the horror of it all.  How could anyone find pleasure in that terrible, horrible accident.  She opens her mouth to speak, but Regina cuts her off neatly.  "Before she fell, I take it that she found the ship, and the good doctor?"  She looks away, “Clever girl.”

"How--" Snow begins, but Regina's pulling her into the house by the sleeve of her jacket.  They're in the kitchen.  There're the remains of lunch on the table still, a magazine open and a closed laptop. The place has always felt so sanitized, but now, as she sees what must be the remnants of a town that still needs governance and a woman who is afraid to run from the undertaking she's cursed herself to do.

"Henry does know how to use a telephone, dear," Regina says, and flips the magazine closed.  She stands there, fingers spread across its cover, looking like the queen that she truly is.  She's haughty and regal and Snow longs to tell her that she's somehow become everything that her father had never wanted in his queen.  "And I will always answer for him."

"I wanted to tell you that I am sorry," Mary Margaret begins.  She fiddles with the hem of her shirt, and then loses all will to resist what she's so afraid of saying.  "I was so quick to let David lead me to believe your guilt."

Regina seems to soften, and she cracks a grin even.  "I suppose as one who has been in a remarkably similar situation, it must have been nice to have him there to muddle his way through a terribly botched criminal investigation and be on your side all at once."

She winces, because only one had believed her innocence before. And only one had believed in Regina's innocence this time.  Gold had seen that her belief was shattered.  "Emma believed in you, believed with all her might."

"Emma believes a lot of things that she should not," comes the response, and Mary Margaret wonders just how much has been said between them as this revelation has becomes reality.  "And she at least has the good grace to beg pardon for the wrongs she's committed."

"That's my daughter you're talking about," Mary Margaret hisses.

Regina's lip curls and she dismisses Mary Margaret with a glance that makes the skin on the back of her neck crawl.  "She is  _so_  much more than that."

-

The problem is that Mary Margaret cannot just walk away from a truth.  She clings to it, grips it because she knows that it is the only thing that keeps her going, keeps her moving.  She’s known the truth of this far longer than she’s dared to deny it.  She has to fix this; she has to save Regina because it’s what she does.  She’s always saving people because it’s what heroes on the side of the light  _do_.  She knows no other way.

“Please stop breaking my appliances,” Mary Margaret says to Emma as she starts in on the hand mixer.  “And use your words.”

“I’m not  _five_ ,” Emma grumbles petulantly and slumps down onto the stool, the mixer on the kitchen island before her.  “And you’re fighting with David.”

“He wants to go back there.”

Emma leans back, feet stretching out forever.   _When did she grow to_ _be a beauty?_  Mary Margaret has wondered what it would be like to raise a daughter.  To take her to her first ball, to see her married to a prince – to assign a set of societal mores to a girl that she no longer believes in.  This world has changed them all.

The stool scrapes out from behind Emma as she stands abruptly. It falls, clattering to the scrubbed wooden floor.  Emma stands tall, her expression hardened behind a grimace of something that Mary Margaret cannot place.  “That can’t happen,” she practically growls, and stalks out of the room.

_ Gods above, _  Mary Margaret thinks in wonderment,  _when did she grow into this woman. When did she grow so tall?  Why have I missed it?_

-

It seems that the mosquitoes have found them.

They're buzzing around the window, a clinging symbol of the last vestiges of summer sunshine that the growing autumn and winter are wailing against.  The nights are cold now, and they've put the heating on for the first time since spring.

David's sitting with his head in his hands and Mary Margaret feels more like Snow than ever before.  She's got her arms wrapped around herself and her chin stuck out as resolutely as she can arrange it.  This is an argument that she cannot back down from.  She can't because she won't and because it's the  _right_  thing to do, no matter what he says.

"I can't believe you," David eventually grinds out, and she swallows something more than pride.  It's a future, their final grasp at a happily ever after.  "Why would you not want this for Emma - for us?"

She bites back retorts and hurtful words, slumping down onto the bed next to him and staring resolutely ahead.  She can't admit defeat.  "Because Emma is not a child," Mary Margaret pushes away the desperate tears that prickle at the corners of her eyes. "Because she's of two worlds and she has no place where we came from.  That world is dead.  And now Cora's followed us here, to find Regina and destroy her forever."

He punches the bed beside him, angry and petulant.  "Cora has nothing to do with Regina’s actions up to this point and you know it. She didn’t make Regina curse us here, take Emma from us.  Cora didn’t make Henry eat that cursed turnover or make you both fall through the hat back into our world.”

And this is where he's wrong.

"Why do you never listen to me when you know I'm right?"  she asks her husband.  She turns and stares at him.  "Cora is a million times worse than Regina has ever been."

"She cursed-" He begins, mouth hanging open.

And this is when Mary Margaret realizes that it is not her place to say.  She shuts her mouth and crumples.  She wants to tell her husband why Cora's worse than Regina.  Wants to tell him what it was like when she was a little girl and Regina scarcely eighteen.  What it was like to watch a mother whose ambition lay dormant save for the thoughts of her daughter's future.  She had watched as Cora coached Regina for her father's marriage bed, hiding behind a curtain, too afraid to move as the willow switch fell again and again.

"He is a king with no sons," Cora had said, over and over.  Her words a mantra as the lines appeared across Regina's back and vanished just as fast as they appeared.  "You will give him that if you want to save your future."

When Mary Margaret takes the time to actually think about how much strife her presence in Regina Mills' life has caused, she wishes she'd never gotten on that horse.  She wishes that her mother had lived and that her father was not quite as doting a father.  She wishes Emma and Henry happiness and a life free of the strife of the past year.  She wishes her knowledge of this land without magic to fade into myth once more.

"She is not without blame, as are we.  Her circumstances are not ideal, nor ours," she says as judiciously as she can.  "Cora is a driving factor in her life and trust me when I tell you that she is a far greater danger to us all."

-

All she wants is to break the ice.  She wants to shake Regina out of the magical, sleepy haze that she's been in for years.  She wants the young woman that she had once fallen in girlish love with to shine through the former queen's stoic expression once more.  She wants to say that she's sorry for all that's happened.

She doesn't know how.

Emma is there when she ends up knocking on that black door under the apple tree this time.  She's there and she doesn't look happy to see Mary Margaret.

"What're-" she begins, and Mary Margaret just stands there awkwardly and gestures inside and raises her eyebrows. To her credit, Emma just shrugs and jerks her head back into the house, but Mary Margaret knows that she will probably never understand this.  Her relationship with Regina is full of intricacy of a different nature.

And so Emma leaves.  She stares over her shoulder as Regina gently steers her out with an armful of Henry's underwear and a bag of cookies.  It's oddly domestic and Mary Margaret really isn't all that sure that she likes it.  She won't be having any of Regina corrupting her only child, even if she fears that she’s already too late to stop it.

"You're fighting with him," is all Regina says and Mary Margaret finds herself crumpling all over again.  Regina’s smirking, leaning against her kitchen counter in heels and an outfit that dares Mary Margaret to tell her that she's no longer the mayor of this forsaken town.  She looks down, staring at her own muddy shoes and jeans that are maybe ten years out of date.

Acid wash is making a comeback, Ruby and Emma had both assured her.

She doesn't know what to say to Regina, or even what she was thinking coming here. It feels so ill-conceived now and they're just sitting here, staring each other down.

"Are you just going to stare at me all day?" Regina asks, and Mary Margaret shakes her head resolutely.  There's an almost motherly tone that her voice takes on then, and Mary Margaret doesn't quite know how to stomach it.  "Then what's wrong?"

She finds her tongue perhaps more quickly than she'd thought it possible. Maybe she’s wanted to say this for far longer than she’d initially thought.  "When we were back in our land," she swallows and tries to quell her fear of the possible reaction that Regina could have to this news. She knows how she’d respond had this been Emma – and she only hopes that Regina will respond differently. "We were captured and taken to a dungeon after I attempted to escape.  Emma was fully conscious, but I was knocked out.  There was a woman who offered her help and a kind ear.  She tended to my injuries and when I woke up, I realized who it was."

"My mother," Regina says and Mary Margaret nods.

"I tried to keep Emma from saying anything about you - about Henry, but she'd already said some of her before I'd come to and the rest… I couldn’t get to her hold her tongue.  We- probably lead her here, to cause you more strife after being free of her for so long,"  she clasps her hands behind her back and bows her head, ready to be admonished or cursed anew.  "I am sorry that I did not wake sooner to save you this pain."

There is a stillness that comes over them both then, and Mary Margaret watches Regina with almost wary eyes.  She’s not entirely sure what to expect now, because she isn’t even sure that this is the right thing to do.  She’s so trapped between two minds about this, that when the apology tumbles from her lips, she can’t help but think it the wrong thing to do.  Had Regina been any other person, this would be easy, but she’s not.  And that’s what makes it so hard.

"Your father always told you that to apologize was the sign of an unfit ruler," Regina says at length, her eyes narrowed and suspicious.  "Why bother to defy him now, when the act is done?"

"Because it's wrong," Mary Margaret hisses.  Her voice seems to squeak as she says it, hands falling to fists clenched at her sides.  "Because to ask forgiveness is the sign of a compassionate queen - because it is an injustice that I could have spared you and I did not act soon enough. Someone taught me that, long ago."

Regina says nothing, folding her arms across her chest and contemplating what Mary Margaret has said.  It is strange to see her still and to see her silent.  These are not natural states of being for Regina.  She is a constant picture of defiance; it stands in her very posture.  It is almost alien to see her staring at the floor, her eyes unreadable and her expression indeterminate.  "Your words and promises have always been empty," she says at length.

"I do not wish them so," comes the reply almost too quickly from Mary Margaret.  Regina has not uttered an untrue accusation.  "And I do not know how to say that I am sorry for everything that happened."

There's silence then, and Mary Margaret wonders if Regina's ever given thought to how she would react to such an admission.  Mary Margaret had never admitted to this before, not as Snow, not as herself.  It is strange, to think that she's been regretting everything that’s happened for so long – kept in the dark and manipulated same as Regina – that she’s never bothered to apologize before now.  She hates that she hasn’t.

There is no right way to rule, and to admit weakness is in direct defiance to her father’s teachings.  Maybe she isn’t meant to rule like him.  Maybe she’s not even meant to rule like Regina – maybe the idea is to be the better person and to rule better.  To understand the weakness and strength of both is to understand how to be a person.  She’s not sure she’s ready to rule at all, but maybe she’s at least ready to start understanding.

“In another time I would have told you to where to put your apology,” Regina muses after a moment.  “Circumstances… have changed, no matter how many times I am framed for murder.”

“I am sorry for that, it was ill-advised of us to jump to conclusions,” Mary Margaret replies, because they all know who was really behind it now.  She and Emma have now been duped twice by the same woman.  They’ve started to set up secrets to prevent this from happening again, answers only the true person would know and there’s only so many times she can ask her husband what his favorite boxers look like  in the company of others before that secret, too, no longer is much of a secret at all.

 Archie has filled them in and the entire story makes a whole lot more sense now.  Once, he had told them that the queen would never change; now he was urging them all to make amends with Regina for their false accusations.

Mary Margaret knows that it’s just her penchant for saving things kicking in once more.  “We’re not children anymore, Regina.  We should stop behaving like them and actually speak to each other.  We’re not our parents.”

She’s not really paying attention, and follows Regina as she pushes off of the counter and heads out of the room. This is a part of the house that she’s never been allowed into, and when Regina collapses into a leather armchair and gestured towards the couch in what appears to be her study, Mary Margaret does as bidden without question.  “I’m just like her,” Regina explains, pointing to herself.  She’s got her elbows on her knees and her palms pressed together as she points them towards Mary Margaret.  “And you’re just like him.”

It’s easy then, to flash a smile and counter with the admission of a fact that she’s tried so long to forget.  That Regina, as much as her own mother, was a mother to her.  Despite the hatred and the resentment and Mary Margaret’s own guilt in the matter, Regina had imparted wisdom the likes of which Mary Margaret still called upon.  She had numbered the stars, painting the constellations across the sky, teaching the child who had destroyed her happiness the ways of the future.  “And a lot like you.”

A void of silence swells between them, and it isn’t easy.  This is the worst feeling in the world, but they’re healing and the wound is slowly starting to scab over, even if it will probably never be okay.  It’s enough to go by, to know that they’re not quite at peace with each other.  It’ll do for now.

“There’s a war coming,” Mary Margaret whispers.  She’s ready to fight, ready to defend what is her birthright.  But this is a place quite unlike any she’s ever heard of before and the rules of engagement here are different.  The battle is due to be magical, and things do not really work that way here – she’s never fought a war like this before, she’s not quite sure how to start.  This is a land without the magic that has so shaped their lives.  They’re ill-prepared and their foes seem innumerable.  “Can I count on your assistance?”

Regina shakes her head.  “You do not get to dictate the terms of my surrender.  I will protect what I have sworn to protect.  Henry is my son and I will guard his safety with my life if need be.  My … my mother will get no closer to him than hearing of him in passing.  You can count on that.”  She raises her gaze to meet Snow’s own evenly.  “I will be your ally in this, but we are not friends.”

“I don’t want to be your enemy,” Mary Margaret replies.  She looks at her hands, and sees them soft and unchanged.  She is no longer a woman of the woods and the outdoors. Twenty eight years teaching and she’s far more accustomed to the needs of children, rather than adults.  “I don’t think we can be friends either,” she confesses.

The weight of it hangs in the room.

“A truce?”  Regina poses and Mary Margaret nods.

“For the time being,” She holds out her hand and there’s a long moment where she feels sheepish and awkward before Regina reaches forward and grasps her own.  This is the first time that they’ve both consented to touching each other in what feels like far longer than three decades.  Regina’s skin still hums with the magical ability that would mark her as a prodigy in any other world, and Mary Margaret still shrinks from it.  But she holds her hand firm and steady and adds, “Please tell me that you and Emma are… merely friends.”

Regina drops Mary Margaret’s hand and slowly a smirk drifts across her face.  She raises her eyebrows once, and then twice, and Mary Margaret feels the heat rise to her cheeks.  “I would recommend you not pry, if you cannot stomach such a thing.”

And stomaching it suddenly feels like a blow to her gut.  She straightens though, and smiles as serenely as she can, because Emma, despite David’s best efforts to forget is an adult.  An adult who is free to sleep around with whomever she wants to.  An adult who…god this is complicated.  Mary Margaret’s brain feels a bit like its breaking and she adds, “Please try and prevent David from finding out.  He’s having enough trouble with the fact that she’s an adult right now.”

“Is that why you’re fighting?” Regina asks.  She’s heading towards the door and Mary Margaret follows her willingly.  She knows she’s being shown out, and she’s … okay with that.  She’s got a lot to think about and process right now as it is.  “Because I would think that as a father, he should be happy to have avoided the assault on his blood pressure caused by having a teenage daughter who is, shall we say, more than a little interested in sex.”

She won’t reply, she won’t reply, she won’t reply.  Her cheeks are scarlet and she lets Regina get the last laugh this time.  Next time, she’ll say something, but they’ve broken ice in a thaw of hatred that’s lasted most of Mary Margaret’s life.

When she leaves, she thanks Regina and waves politely as Regina stands in the doorway of her house and watches her go.

-

Maybe it’s enough that she’s got a penchant for saving people. She’s got enough to go by to tell her that she’s doing the right thing.  She’s going to sit Emma down and inform her that Regina is her step-grandmother and it’s a little awkward, but she’s sure that Emma will get all sullen and quiet like her father does when she’s not getting his way and that she’ll back down.  Because all she wants is happiness for everyone involved, and she’s pretty sure that’s not too much to ask.


End file.
